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Sunday, 16 June 2013

Nestle Aero Bubbles Mint

Netle's new Aero Bubbles might be new to Australia, but they have been available in the UK for many years. I first heard about them through Catchoftheday.com.au a few years ago, where they were imported stock, and even better, in orange flavour (a favourite!) Unfortunately I never ended up placing an order, something I've regretted for ages, but at least now Australia has their own stock!

Well, not quite. These are UK-imported stock, recently confirmed by Nestle on their Aero Australian Facebook page.

The Bubbles are small, spherical bites of the classic Aero aerated confectionery, surrounded by a layer of thick milk chocolate. The centre on Aero Mint products is a 'confectionery' (it's not technically chocolate). I can't say why they don't use white chocolate instead, but I would hazard a guess that cost has a lot to do with it.

The green matte-finish foil package is bright and easy to spot on the shelf as it looks very similar to the standard Aero bars. The bag weighs 35g, while a bar comes in at 40g, but the 5g difference is a lot more noticeable with the different product size (balls versus a bar). I received 12 balls in my bag.

The balls are very similar in size to a Mars Malteser, at about 2cm wide (shown with a Mentos for size below). Although the chocolate layer is a nice colour to it, it looks a bit dinged from its travels. Some balls had a small hole or crater where the chocolate had broken. All of the balls have a noticeable seam in the chocolate as well. They smell very sweet with a sugared-up mint scent, and they are quite strong.

I was surprised to find that the glazing layer over the chocolate was a touch sticky if my fingers were even slightly warm. I would not want to touch these on a warm day! When I bit one open, I found that the chocolate layer was quite thin - less than 2mm - which is very different to the product image on the bag. The light green confectionery filling also didn't fill the entire ball; instead there are fairly even big air bubbles inside. I bit open a few different balls and found most had the big air bubbles.

Luckily the taste is nice. I found these milder than an Aero Mint bar in terms of both sweetness and mint flavour - perhaps it is the proportion of more chocolate to less confectionery centre. The bubbly confectionery centre is quite light - as to be expected from an air-filled product. The chew is not very milky or melty, and the mild mint flavour doesn't hang around afterwards either. I rather enjoyed them as something mild, but I did find that the more I ate, the stronger the sweetness became. I think I can understand why the serving is six pieces, and not the whole bag.

I liked the flavour, but the stickiness is offputting. 3 out of 5 stars.

Made in the UK. Contains milk and wheat. Nestle has said on their Facebook page that the Aero Bubbles Mint "do not contain peanut and tree-nut ingredients" and there is no nut statement on the bag.